• "You, being below me as a servant, shall suffer a great lashing for this dishonor to the crown of england!" The Queen belowed as she stood in front of the small servant girl named Claire. The Queen's face was as red as her dress, she was dishonored, for the servant girl had not tended the garden to her likeing.

    "Go now, to the lashing room. The others will follow!" She cried harshly, dismissing the girl and the others with a flick of her hand.

    Claire slowly walked out of the throne room and down the hall, the other children followed her, sobbing silently out of misery and broken hearts. "Come now children, we must obey the Queen." Claire whispered, taking two small boys hands in hers.

    "But ms Claire, we are getting lashed momentarily!" The boy cried, clinging to Claire's arm as if it was the last hope for life. Claire knew that one day, the Queen would kill all of them.

    "Come in now you blasted, grimy children!" The old man yelled grudgingly from the indside of the dark room.

    "Go in, go in. It'll be okay." Claire said, chauffering all of the 'bad' children into the lashing and beating room.

    "Alright you slugs! Shirts off, backs to me!" The man cried, picking up a long whip rope.

    Everyone did as they were told, sobbing. Claire turned her shirtless back to the man and awaited her punishment. Each time the whip struck her back, she remembered the torturing memory of the day she was given to the crown. She painfully struck the memory of her parents standing at the doorway, crying as the carriage took her and twelve others away to their doom.

    "Alright you mongrels! Get back to your work! GO!" The old man cried, pointing at the doorway and screaming them all the way out.

    "CLAIRE!" A small girl cried as she ran out of the lashing and beating room.

    "Claire, Claire, my back hurts! Help it stop ms Claire, help it stop!" The small girl sobbed on Claire's arm.

    "Poor girl, I'm sorry, I can't help you... My back hurts too.. We'll be okay. I promise, I really do." Claire said, rubbing the girls head and soothing her.

    "Now sweety, go to your chores, you won't want another lashing now do you?" Claire said, pushing the girl towards the door.

    "No ms Claire, I would not." The girl said, a small smile smearing itself on her face as she dashed out the door for her five minute break with the other children.

    "Claire! What happened, come tell me as we feed the plants!" Claire's best friend Maria called, patting a small patch of dirt by the vegetable garden.

    Maria and Claire had been friends even before they were 'recruited' for work at the palace. Claire and Maria were both thirteen. The perfect age for palace work. Maria had long golden hair that hung straight to her shoulders. Her face was a tan color with bright blue eyes, and a sparkling grin that could light up the room.

    Claire was pale. She had always been pale, in fact her parents had called her the ghost as a nickname when she was younger. She had black hair that hung to the middle of her back in small, wavy curls. She had gorgeous green eyes and a tight face that rarely grinned.

    "Claire, I'm sorry.. You should not have taken the fall for my terrible actions!" Maria said, not looking up from the tomatoes as she talked after hearing what Claire said.

    "No Maria, we both know that you have a tendency to let go of your thoughts and last time you did that you were very nearly dead!" Claire said, a small giggle bursting from her lips at the end.

    "You! You know better than to laugh at such a horid thing as that!" Maria said, slapping Claire's leg playfully.

    "Oh well, back to work. Come on now, water the tomatoes, they get more than we do anyway!" Claire said, generously tipping a jar of water onto the plants.

    "That is very truthful, I wish they would care for us like our parents did.." Maria said, thinking of hopes that were lost long ago.

    "Maria, just do your work. Forget about those long ago dreams! We are living now, in the dawn of a new age, a breed of people that forgive and forget! Move on Maria, just let it go, and move on!" Claire said.

    "Claire!" Maria said, standing up. Her purple dress swinging around her ankles.

    "Maria." Claire said calmly, still seated.

    "Claire, I can not believe your nerve! You do not forget about your family!" Maria said, storming out of the garden and into the slave kitchen.

    "Oh no Maria! That's sure to get you a sound lashing!" Claire said, rushing after Maria into the house.

    "MARIA GONSALVES! TO THE GALLOWS IMMEDIATELY!" The Queen's harsh voice bellowed out of the throne room.

    "No!" Claire whispered, clutching at the corner of the counter in the kitchen.

    "Take her away!" The Queen's voice called to two guards.

    "CLAIRE!" Maria screamed as the two men dragged her angrily through the kitchen.

    "MARIA!" Claire screamed back, tugging at the guards arms and trying desperately to save her best friend in the world.

    "Just take her too!" The Queen yelled as she came rushing in behind them.

    "NO!!" Now Claire and Maria screamed in unison.

    After a while they arrived at the gallows. Maria and Claire were tired and gave up fighting a long while ago. They walked Maria up the steps and stood her on the platform under the long noose.

    They put the rope around poor Maria's neck and her blonde hair coiled underneath it. Claire wished desperately that she was at home. She closed her eyes and prayed that it wasn't real. But, she heard the sickening thud of the platform dropping. She couldn't will herself to look.

    The two men came and pulled her up and put her under the noose. The noose was cold and thick.

    "Have a good trip!" The noose man said, smiling grimly. He pulled the lever, and the platform dropped.


    "Claire! Wake up! The palace has ordered you for work!" Claire heard her mother's voice call from the hallway outside her bedroom door. She was thriteen, the perfect age for palace work.